


Jolto Angst

by DaringlyDomestic



Series: Tumblr Ficlets [11]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Graphic Violence, M/M, and sex, character death (not a main character), in Afghanistan, it's a war, war tw
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-07
Updated: 2016-04-07
Packaged: 2018-05-31 18:55:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 638
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6483130
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DaringlyDomestic/pseuds/DaringlyDomestic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>written for Kelli (@beejohnlocked)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Jolto Angst

James wipes a line of sweat from his brow. Even in the cooler temperature of twilight, the Afghan heat is sweltering. It had been a long morning of training. A new batch of recruits had been flown in last night, all bright-eyed and thirsty for their first taste of battle. God, he loves breaking them in. Making them run for miles in their full packs, watching their eyes go wide and scared at the first sounds of actual gunfire, teaching them how to form up. Maybe he really does have that power kink John is always teasing him about. He smiles - a small, private thing. Miraculously, his and John’s schedules coincide tonight! He just might have a chance to test out that theory.

He sweeps into his quarters humming happily. He stops in his tracks at the sight in front of him. John is still dressed in his fatigues. Blood is matted in his hair and caked along his neck. His boots are covered in sand and sweat and god-knows what else. He is sitting on James’ bed, head bowed and cradled in his hands. “John?” he asks quietly. The man in question turns to fix him with a dead-eyed watery stare. John’s voice breaks with desperation and heartache. “I can’t do this, James. I can’t!” John is working himself into hysteria. “Oh god. Oh GOD!…just a kid….he was just a kid….Jesus!”

Not knowing what else to do, James sits gently on the bed next to John and wraps his arm around John’s shoulders. John collapses into his side and grasps his lapels like lifelines. Like James could tether him here, wipe out all the blood and the pain and the unimaginable waste of human life. Like if he holds him close enough, everything else will stop, cease to exist until nothing matters except the twining of their bodies and the rhythmic hypnotism of co-mingled breaths under the constant vigil of the night sky.

Tomorrow John will want to talk about it. He’ll tell James all about the eager twenty-something that came up too quick, wasn’t watching, didn’t care until he heard the telltale mechanical hiss of a landmine being depressed. He’ll recount the horror and panic he could see in the kid’s eyes as he realized what was happening. The way the kid’s whole body shook even as he drew up his shoulders, always the soldier, even to the end. He’ll describe the heat and the feel of being thrown across the sand as the kid stepped off the mine. The smell of charred flesh and the agonized screams of the kid who wasn’t lucky enough to be ripped apart in the right places, places that would have ended the suffering almost before it began. John will describe with agonizing clarity the sizzling, burnt flesh underneath his hands as he desperately tried to staunch the blood flow, already knowing it would never be enough. He’ll cry as he tells James how it felt to hold the kid’s head in his hands when he ran out of things to do. How there was nothing to do but wait for his eyes to cloud and his labored breathing to go blessedly quiet. How the kid’s last words were of his boyfriend back home and their plans that would never happen now. Tomorrow John will tell him all of this, but tonight James will comfort John. Tonight, there will be gentle kisses and gentler hands. Calming, reassuring, thanking God that John is here. That John is alive - lungs inhaling, pulse racing, heartbreakingly alive.

At last, after John has been cherished and worshipped and thoroughly loved, as James comes shaking and gasping, he will press his lips to the shell of John’s ear and break his carefully controlled silence to whisper, “Thank god. Thank god. Oh thank god.”


End file.
